The present invention relates to the field of access control portals. The invention is for example applicable to the control of access to airport departure lounges or to sensitive Government buildings or Institutions, without these applications being limiting.
Many access control portals for protected areas have been proposed. Examples of access control portals may be found in the documents FR 2 775 350, EP 1 394 570, EP 1 750 147, U.S. Pat. No. 7,592,907.
Generally access control portals define, as illustrated in the appended FIG. 1, a through corridor or channel 5 framed by two panels or columns 1, 2. The panels or columns 1, 2 comprise sensors designed to detect different types of substances or materials liable to be carried by individuals travelling through the portal. These sensors can comprise coils attached to means 4 forming generators to emit an electromagnetic field likely to detect metals carried by individuals travelling through the portal, by analysing the perturbations detected on the coils by logic means integrated into the means 4. Some portals are also equipped with means for analysing particular chemical substances or molecules, or else ionizing radiation such as such as gamma radiation.
The known access control portals have already been very useful. However they are not always totally satisfactory. Particularly in cases of heavy through traffic, it often happens that several individuals following each other at close distances lead to perturbations in the detection due to their closeness. In particular, it can happen that an alarm is attributed to an individual travelling through a portal that is in reality related to the individual following or preceding them. The individual checks that are then necessary are both disturbing for the individuals in question, complicated and a source of access delays.
The aim of the present invention is to improve the situation. This aim is achieved according to the invention using an individual access control portal comprising two panels or columns that define a through corridor, which panels or columns are equipped with sensors designed to detect substances or materials liable to be carried by individuals travelling through the portal, characterized by the fact that the portal is equipped with a plurality of individual detection barriers distributed along the direction of passage through the portal and logic means attached to the plurality of barriers, firstly to determine from the series of activations of said barriers the place and movement of an individual, and secondly to establish the correlations existing between the movement of an individual and the signals output by the substance or material detection sensors, the logic means being designed to detect the correlation between a peak output by the substance or material sensors and the simultaneous activation of two barriers located the nearest to the centre of the portal.
According to other advantageous features of the invention:                The detection barriers are optical barriers,        The number of detection barriers is greater than 3,        The number of detection barriers is equal to 4,        Provision is made for two barriers upstream and two barriers downstream of the detection sensors,        The logic means are designed to seek the correlations existing between the peaks of the signals output by the substance or material detection sensors and the simultaneous activation of two barriers located the nearest to the centre of the passage defined in the corridor or channel of the portal.        